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Butter made from carbon tastes like the real thing, gets backing from Bill Gates
9 months ago
- A company in Batavia, Illinois, is making butter from carbon, not animals or plants.
- The butter looks, smells, and tastes like traditional butter but is made sustainably.
- The process uses carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water, creating fat molecules similar to those in beef or vegetable oils.
- The method produces zero greenhouse gases and requires no farmland, significantly reducing environmental impact.
- Savor, the company behind the innovation, is backed by Bill Gates, who highlights its potential to reduce carbon footprints.
- The butter contains minimal ingredients: fat, water, lecithin, and natural flavors, avoiding palm oil linked to deforestation.
- Savor plans to release chocolates made with their butter by the 2025 holiday season and aims for consumer availability by 2027.
- The company collaborates with restaurants, bakeries, and food suppliers to introduce their product to the market.
MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System
9 months ago
- USB-C's versatility allows unexpected connections, like a toaster with HDMI output.
- MCP (Model Context Protocol) is designed for AI but can connect any data sources and tools.
- MCP servers create a universal plugin ecosystem, expanding app capabilities without direct integration.
- APM (Actions Per Minute) leverages MCP for a flexible task management app with diverse plugins.
- Great protocols like HTTP and Bluetooth evolved beyond their original purposes, similar to MCP's potential.
How Boom uses software to accelerate hardware development
9 months ago
- Boom Supersonic developed the XB-1, the world's first independently-developed supersonic jet, with a team of just 50 people and a fraction of the traditional budget.
- The company aims to apply lessons learned from XB-1 to develop the Overture airliner and Symphony engine more efficiently.
- Boom emphasizes rapid iteration in hardware development by reducing the cost of each engineering iteration.
- Software engineers are embedded within hardware teams to automate design workflows, fostering a culture of 'invent together.'
- mkBoom, Boom's proprietary airplane design software, automates whole aircraft level design analysis, significantly speeding up the engineering process.
- mkBoom allows for the evaluation of many more designs, leading to better overall aircraft performance and passenger experience.
- A joint simulation of Overture and Symphony in mkBoom led to a design optimization that recovered 1,000 miles of range, enabling a better cabin design.
- The optimized design also unlocked Boomless Cruise on Overture, allowing for quieter supersonic flights.
- Boom's approach to software and hardware integration creates more enjoyable engineering work and enables the formation of small, highly selective teams.
Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company
9 months ago
- The biggest hurdle to a one-person billion dollar company is founder pain tolerance, not AI capability.
- Sam Altman and Dario Amodei believe a one-person billion dollar company is inevitable, predicting it could happen by 2026.
- Heather Cox Richardson is currently closest to this milestone, with her newsletter valued at ~$50 million.
- Achieving a billion-dollar valuation likely requires an app with recurring revenue and network effects.
- Potential candidates for this milestone include someone with a viral product like Flappy Bird or a visionary like Instagram's founder.
- Enterprise ventures are unlikely due to the complexities and challenges they present for solo founders.
- Even if successful, founders may choose to hire to maximize the product's potential, deviating from the pure one-person model.
The Kuzma Self-Playing Guitar System
9 months ago
- Michael Kuzma developed the Kuzma Self-Playing Guitar System in 9,400 hours.
- The system includes 3D-printed parts, motors, belt drives, and can both pick and fret.
- It can play up to 44 notes per second, faster than humanly possible.
- Kuzma custom-builds these systems starting at $40,000, with seven units delivered so far.
- The invention has been used for hands-off busking, though some criticize its lack of human-like expression.
Apple and Amazon will miss AI like Intel missed mobile
9 months ago
- Apple and Amazon risk missing the AI revolution due to their entrenched company cultures and strategies.
- Both companies view AI as a commodity rather than a paradigm shift, leading to underinvestment and misalignment.
- Amazon's AWS strategy focuses on commoditized infrastructure, but AI prioritizes quality/performance over price.
- Apple's heavy reliance on the iPhone (75% of revenue) makes it vulnerable to AI-driven shifts in user interfaces.
- AI's rapid evolution challenges Apple's slow-moving, hardware-centric approach, potentially making hardware a commodity.
- Amazon and Apple may struggle to catch up due to the innovator's dilemma and fast-moving AI advancements.
- Changing the game (e.g., creating new standards) could help, but both are already behind Nvidia and OpenAI.
- Company culture, once a strength, can become a liability when market paradigms shift.
- Founders are often better positioned than managers to make bold, disruptive decisions.
- Intel's delayed collapse after missing mobile suggests Apple and Amazon may face similar fates, but faster due to AI's pace.
Japan opens osmotic power plant
9 months ago
- Japan's first osmotic power plant started operations in early August in a southwestern prefecture.
- The plant uses the difference in salt concentration between seawater and fresh water to generate electricity.
- The technology is described as a next-generation renewable energy source unaffected by weather or time, emitting no CO2.
- Electricity is produced via osmotic process using a permeable membrane separating concentrated seawater and treated water.
- A turbine is rotated by water movement from fresh to saltwater, generating electricity.
- The plant in Fukuoka is expected to produce 880,000 kWh annually, powering a desalination facility.
- The project is praised as a significant step for renewable energy, with hopes for global adoption.
Moguls Moving Money Isn't the Same as Building a Business
8 months ago
- Moving money is not the same as building a business; true entrepreneurship involves creating something new.
- Creative individuals—artists, writers, coders—deserve recognition for their work, whether for passion, profit, or business growth.
- Venture capital has distorted entrepreneurship, falsely equating capital manipulation with innovation and business-building.
- VCs have shifted from supporting founders to pushing political agendas, framing venture funding as the only path to business success.
- Politicians and regulators often mistake financial manipulation for genuine business development, leading to wasteful subsidies for billionaires.
- True innovation stems from community, creativity, and collaboration—not just money or lone geniuses.
Creating 3D Worlds with HTML and CSS (2013)
8 months ago
- The author created a demo showcasing CSS 3D transforms to build 3D environments.
- The demo evolved with more complex models, realistic lighting, shadows, and collision detection.
- 3D objects in CSS are created using HTML elements, manipulated via transforms without complex math.
- Lighting was a major challenge, requiring calculations to simulate depth and atmosphere.
- Flat shading was initially used, but the author sought more realistic lighting with multiple light sources.
- A second approach used <canvas> to generate light maps for realistic lighting effects.
- Shadows were implemented by checking light obstruction between surfaces.
- Collision detection uses a height map to determine player movement and interactions.
- Future plans include developing a game and integrating these techniques with Three.js.
- The project received widespread acclaim for its innovative use of CSS and JavaScript.
Tsinghua Uni Breaks 65-Year Limit: A Faster Alternative to Dijkstra's Algorithm
8 months ago
- Tsinghua University researchers developed a new algorithm faster than Dijkstra's, breaking a 65-year-old barrier.
- Dijkstra's algorithm, introduced in 1956, was the gold standard for solving the single-source shortest path (SSSP) problem.
- The new algorithm bypasses full sorting by grouping nodes into clusters and using partial ordering, achieving O(m · log^(2/3) n) runtime.
- Applications include faster navigation, optimized network routing, smarter AI, and large-scale graph analytics.
- The algorithm is more complex and slower on small graphs, making Dijkstra's still preferable for everyday systems.
- This breakthrough opens new research avenues in graph theory, AI planning, and big data systems.
Invention as Exploration
8 months ago
- Richard Sutton's Bitter Lesson highlights that general methods leveraging computation outperform domain-specific algorithms relying on human intuition.
- Invention is fundamentally about exploring combinatorial complexity rather than cleverness or expertise.
- Chess and computer vision evolved from expert systems to methods relying on vast computational searches.
- Optimal solutions in high-dimensional spaces are sparse and require systematic exploration over human intuition.
- Go and neural networks exemplify vast combinatorial spaces where human intuition is inadequate.
- Thomas Edison, Luther Burbank, and Henry Ford succeeded through relentless systematic experimentation, not just intelligence.
- Edison tested thousands of materials to invent the light bulb, emphasizing speed and systematic search.
- Burbank revolutionized agriculture by exploring over 100,000 plant variations, leading to breakthroughs like the Russet Burbank potato.
- Ford optimized manufacturing through iterative experimentation, reducing production time drastically.
- Breakthroughs often come from outsiders or young minds unconstrained by expert biases.
- The future of innovation lies in combining human and machine capabilities to explore solution spaces efficiently.
How China Became an Innovation Powerhouse
8 months ago
- China's state-led innovation model has produced impressive results, but with increasing costs.
- Fusion Energy Tech, a Chinese startup, is commercializing plasma technology derived from nuclear fusion, with applications like security-screening devices in metro stations.
- China is making strides in open models, potentially challenging American tech dominance.
- The article also touches on various tech and cultural trends in China, including the 'facekini' and lab-grown cocoa.
I Love Reading 1980s Computer Magazines, and So Should You
8 months ago
- WIRED editors independently select products but may receive compensation from retailers.
- Magical Poet, an AI-powered poetry generator, was available on early Macintosh computers in 1985.
- 1980s and 1990s computer magazines reveal a 'Cambrian explosion' of diverse hardware and software designs.
- Early technology often explored many concepts before settling on the most effective ones.
- Some extinct technologies had merit but failed due to market conditions or technological limitations.
- Historical technologies like HyperCard and early neural networks prefigured modern innovations.
- Technologists often overlook past innovations, leading to a lack of historical perspective in computing.
- Projects like the Media Archaeology Lab help rediscover and learn from old technologies.
- Reexamining past technological knowledge can inspire new innovations and alternative futures.
The Case for Crazy Philanthropy
8 months ago
- Private philanthropy in science and medicine is at an unprecedented level, with major foundations like Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Gates Foundation leading the charge.
- Modern philanthropy has become bureaucratic, favoring traditional institutions and well-established scientists over unconventional ideas or outsiders.
- Examples of large donations include $900 million to Columbia University by Roy Vagelos and $300 million to Harvard by Ken Griffin, reinforcing the status quo.
- Historically, philanthropy was more eccentric and led to breakthroughs by funding unconventional ideas, such as Katalin Karikó's Nobel-winning research on mRNA vaccines.
- Current philanthropic efforts, even when innovative, often mimic existing institutions, like HHMI's Investigator program or collaborations with major universities.
- Institutional isomorphism explains why scientific organizations and universities look similar, driven by coercive, mimetic, and normative forces.
- Early 20th-century philanthropy, like Alfred Loomis's Tower House lab, fostered groundbreaking research in physics and biology, leading to radar and nuclear advancements.
- Today, figures like Nat Friedman (Vesuvius Challenge) and Gabe Newell (deep-sea research ship) exemplify 'crazy philanthropy' by funding unconventional projects.
- There is a need for more eccentric philanthropy to support outside-the-box ideas, such as human anatomy research or the search for extraterrestrial life.
- Bureaucratic funding systems crowd out oddball ideas, making individual philanthropists crucial for fostering unexpected breakthroughs.
A Constructive Look at TempleOS (2015)
8 months ago
- TempleOS is a unique operating system created by Terry A. Davis over 12 years, inspired by his belief that God instructed him to build a 'temple'.
- Despite its amateurish approach and Terry's controversial behavior due to schizophrenia, TempleOS offers innovative features like a hypertext system (DolDoc) and the HolyC programming language.
- TempleOS boots in just 1 second and is instantly usable, with no paging or memory protection, running all code at ring 0 for full system access.
- The shell in TempleOS doubles as a programming environment and calculator, with system-wide autocomplete and hyperlinked commands for easy navigation and execution.
- DolDoc allows embedding images, 3D meshes, and macros directly into documents, blurring the lines between text, programs, and menus.
- HolyC is a C-like language with extensions for JIT compilation, dynamic linking, and metadata reflection, eliminating the need for a formal build system.
- TempleOS lacks hardware support beyond basic PC components, focusing on a standardized, hands-on approach reminiscent of 1980s computers like the Commodore 64.
- The OS challenges conventional OS design by prioritizing simplicity and user empowerment over security and multi-user support.
- Despite its flaws, TempleOS offers valuable insights into alternative OS design and the potential benefits of thinking outside established paradigms.
- The article encourages an open-minded approach to learning from unconventional projects like TempleOS, highlighting the potential for innovation in unexpected places.
Rust Innovation Lab Announced by the Rust Foundation
8 months ago
- The Rust Foundation announced the Rust Innovation Lab (RIL) to support Rust projects.
- RIL provides governance, legal, administrative, and fiscal support while leaving technical direction to maintainers.
- Rustls, a modern TLS library in Rust, is the first project to join RIL.
- The lab aims to strengthen the Rust ecosystem by supporting funded open-source projects.
- RIL's details and focus are available on the RustFoundation.org website.
Apertus: A fully open, transparent, multilingual language model
8 months ago
- EPFL, ETH Zurich, and CSCS are pioneering an open approach with Apertus, focusing on innovation and AI expertise across research, society, and industry.
- Apertus is trained on 15 trillion tokens covering over 1,000 languages, with 40% non-English data, including underrepresented languages like Swiss German and Romansh.
- Apertus is designed for public good, being one of the few fully open large language models (LLMs) emphasizing multilingualism, transparency, and compliance.
- Swisscom is deploying Apertus on its sovereign Swiss AI Platform, supporting access during the Swiss {ai} Weeks to promote a secure and responsible AI ecosystem.
Experimental Hook-and-Loop Attachment System for Walls and Floors
8 months ago
- ReCon Project at TU Graz proposes a hook-and-loop fastening system for walls.
- Uses concrete protrusions and 3D-printed flexible sheets for non-permanent adhesion.
- Aims to separate durable structures from short-lived elements like installations and surfaces.
- Potential future applications could simplify tasks like replacing flooring or wallpaper.
- Concerns raised about durability under flexible flooring and limitations with hardwoods.
He crossed 26 miles in a kayak made from mushrooms – and lived to tell the tale
8 months ago
- Sam Shoemaker kayaked 26.4 miles from Catalina Island to San Pedro in a mushroom-grown kayak, marking the longest open-water journey in such a vessel.
- The kayak was made from mycelium, a fungal network, showcasing its potential as an eco-friendly alternative to plastics.
- Shoemaker's journey took 12 hours, during which he encountered a fin whale, which inspired him to complete the voyage.
- Mycelium-based materials, termed AquaFung, are lightweight, buoyant, and biodegradable, offering sustainable options for aquatic equipment.
- Shoemaker's work aligns with a growing community of artists and scientists exploring fungal innovation for practical applications.
- The project highlights the challenges of scaling mycelium production, as creating one kayak took a year and remains heavier than commercial options.
- Shoemaker plans to share his open-source research to inspire others to improve upon his designs.
- The success of mushroom-based materials in fashion (e.g., Stella McCartney's mushroom leather) hints at broader industrial potential.
- Despite optimism, Shoemaker cautions that mycelium is not yet a silver bullet for replacing plastics but represents a promising step forward.
We Rarely Lose Technology (2023)
8 months ago
- Lost technology is a common trope in fiction but rarely matches reality.
- Technology can be lost when knowledge is confined to a single inventor who dies without sharing it, such as Girolamo Segato's petrification technique.
- Military secrets like Greek Fire and Fogbank were lost due to extreme classification and compartmentalization.
- Claims of lost technology often arise from extraordinary skill, like Stradivarius violins or Inca stonework, rather than actual forgotten techniques.
- Mysterious artifacts like the Antikythera mechanism or Baghdad Battery are not lost technologies but rather objects whose uses are unclear.
- Some materials, like Roman concrete or wootz steel, had properties dependent on specific, forgotten processes.
- The extinction of species like silphium or the decline of cultivars like the Montreal melon represent losses of biological, not technological, knowledge.
- Many stories of lost technology, such as Archimedes' heat ray or Tesla's teleforce, are likely hoaxes or exaggerations.
- True loss of technology is rare in large, innovative cultures but can occur in isolated or declining societies.

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#innovation

Butter made from carbon tastes like the real thing, gets backing from Bill Gates

MCP: An (Accidentally) Universal Plugin System

How Boom uses software to accelerate hardware development

Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

The Kuzma Self-Playing Guitar System

Apple and Amazon will miss AI like Intel missed mobile

Japan opens osmotic power plant

Moguls Moving Money Isn't the Same as Building a Business

Creating 3D Worlds with HTML and CSS (2013)

Tsinghua Uni Breaks 65-Year Limit: A Faster Alternative to Dijkstra's Algorithm

Invention as Exploration

How China Became an Innovation Powerhouse

I Love Reading 1980s Computer Magazines, and So Should You

The Case for Crazy Philanthropy

A Constructive Look at TempleOS (2015)

Rust Innovation Lab Announced by the Rust Foundation

Apertus: A fully open, transparent, multilingual language model

Experimental Hook-and-Loop Attachment System for Walls and Floors

He crossed 26 miles in a kayak made from mushrooms – and lived to tell the tale

We Rarely Lose Technology (2023)